Just like us, but Jewish: Jewishness, ethnicity, class affinity and transnationality in Lima

Abstract

Small Jewish, Latin-American communities have been commonly overlooked by the fields of Latin-American Studies and Jewish Studies. They, however, provide valuable sources for the study of ethnicity, religion, multiculturalism, national and transnational experience in Latin America. The article examines Jewish life in Lima (Peru) from the second half of the twentieth century to the first decade of the twenty-first century. It presents the case of a small, Latin-American, Jewish organized community and sheds light on the forms in which the reconfiguration of social classes in Peru, changes within the Catholic Church, the creation of a Jewish nation-state in Israel and the change in status of American Jewry have shaped this minority. While trying to establish how Jewishness and Peruvian-ness are negotiated in this context, the article addresses the process of social insertion of Limeño Jews, an otherwise diasporic, ethnic and religious group, into the upper-middle class as one of the main features of the ‘Jewish version of Lima’.